Child Brides in Turkey

40% of girls under the age of 18 in Turkey are forced into marriage, according to Turkish Philanthropy Funds.

In January 2018, a government body under President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's jurisdiction suggested that, according to Islamic law, girls as young as 9 and boys as young as 12 could marry.

"Low education" means almost all of Turkey: The average schooling in the country is a mere 6.5 years.

In Turkey you may abuse a 13-year-old and walk free, but you may not tease the president.

Where would you like your daughter to be when she is 13? In school, or in bed with a grown man? The answer to this question is largely beyond argument in much of the world. In Islamic societies, however -- including non-Arab and theoretically secular Turkey -- the answer is anyone's guess. Usually in such states, the police power of the government does not fight the patriarchal tradition; instead, it supports it.

Turkey's former president, Abdullah Gül, incumbent Islamist strongman Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's former ally and co-founder of the party that has ruled Turkey since 2002, was a 30-year-old man when he married his wife Hayrünnisa when she was 15. Gül, nominated for the presidency by Erdoğan, was Turkey's first Islamist president.

Turkey's president from 2007 to 2014, Abdullah Gül (left), was a 30-year-old man when he married his wife Hayrünnisa (right) when she was 15 years old. (Photo by NATO press office via Getty Images)

Conservative Turks, instead of questioning Gül's marriage to a child, cheered his rise to the presidency. This author was privately -- but not politely -- warned several times by senior politicians against bringing up the issue in his column in another newspaper.

According to Turkish Philanthropy Funds (TPF), 40% of girls under the age of 18 in Turkey are forced into marriage. TPF found that the Turkish national average of female high school dropouts was 56%. It further found that early marriage is seen in families with a low education level. "Low education" means almost all of Turkey: The average schooling in the country is a mere 6.5 years. In 45 Turkish provinces, the schooling rate is below the national average.

The Islamist rule in the once secular country has added to the problem of child brides instead of combating it. In November 2017, President Erdoğan signed the "mufti law," which allows state-approved clerics (or simply imams) to conduct marriage ceremonies, "despite concerns from civil society that this could have an impact on child marriage."

In January 2018, the Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet) -- a government body under Erdoğan's jurisdiction -- suggested that according to Islamic law, girls as young as 9 years old and boys as young as 12 could marry. Diyanet is responsible for administering religious institutions in Turkey. Its website reaffirmed that, according to Islamic law, whoever had reached the age of "adolescence" had the right to marry. This "fatwa" prompted the country's main opposition party, a secular group, to call for an investigation into child marriages.

The arrival of around three million Syrian refugees to Turkey since civil war broke out in the neighboring country has made things worse. For instance, a social worker at the Kanuni Sultan Süleyman Training and Research Hospital in Istanbul's Küçükçekmece district revealed that the hospital treated 115 pregnant underage girls, including 39 Syrian nationals, between Jan. 1 and May 9, 2017. The social worker complained to prosecutors that the hospital tried to cover up the pregnancies and did not notify the authorities, as is a legal requirement for the treatment of all pregnant girls younger than 18 in Turkey. Such examples are only the "tip of the iceberg," according to Canan Güllü, head of the Turkish Women Associations Federation.

A recent case of Syrian refugee-related child abuse is an embarrassment not only for the Turkish political culture that has nurtured the malady but also for the Turkish judiciary:

Fatma C., a Syrian child refugee arrived in Ankara, the Turkish capital, with her family four years ago. In 2017, according to an indictment, she was forced at the age of 13 to marry her relative, Abdulkerim J. The marriage was not civil but religious (made legal under Islam by an imam). Fatma C. got pregnant and was taken to a local health center where, because she was younger than 18, authorities informed law enforcement authorities.

Prosecutors decided that the girl's husband and her mother, Emani B., should stand trial for forcing an underage girl into marriage. So, stand trial they did. But a court in Ankara ruled during the first hearing of the case to acquit them. The defendants maintained that they did not know the Turkish law on marriage and that the girl had married "under Syrian law." An unusually tolerant Turkish prosecutor ruled that the "marriage took place not with the intention of committing an offense."

"It is universal rule that not knowing the law is not an excuse when one offends," said Ceren Kalay Eken, a lawyer from the Ankara Bar Association. "The appropriate place for a 13-year-old girl is on the school bench, not tending to the cradle."

It is amazing how soft and tolerant Turkish law enforcement can be when the offenders act from motives derived from austere Islamic values and traditions. Around the same time as the child bride's abusers went free during their first hearing, another Ankara court arrested four university students for exhibiting at their graduation ceremony a placard that the court deemed insulting to President Erdoğan. In Turkey, you may abuse a 13-year-old and walk free, but you may not tease the president.

Burak Bekdil, one of Turkey's leading journalists, was recently fired from Turkey's leading newspaper after 29 years, for writing what was taking place in Turkey for Gatestone. He is a Fellow at the Middle East Forum.

Comment on this item

11 Reader Comments

Bill • Jul 31, 2018 at 10:56

The fact of pedophilia inherent in Islam, yes "normal" "moderate" Islam, underscores the common ground progressives and feminists now have with Islam. Progressives and feminists are all about sexual license and the destruction of Western Civilization just like their Muslim allies.

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frank haskell • Jul 30, 2018 at 15:37

These are constant reminders of how much better off the world would be without shariah ruled nations. While liberals would decry these same abuses of children while accusing the Israelis of greater guilt and shame for putting child terrorists also products of Islamist societies in military courts and prisons, the most recent example the 17 year old who incited violence and struck an IDf soldier and served 8 months for her "bravery". She is regalled by the PA and Abbas reminiscent of the Goodfellas when Henry gets arrested for the first time and the entire mob turns out to celebrate him.8 year old Palestinian youths have been sent out with knives to murder Jews at random.The Islamists simply do not respect their youth in anyway that resembles the west.
Our sense of injustice must therefore be the result colonialism capitalism and Islam the perfect example of government religious cult is unfairly judged by systems that cause schizophrenia and even TAD.

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David Phelps • Jul 30, 2018 at 12:16

Erdogan needs a good crusader slap! This indeed would wake up the country giving them time to change to a normal and educated ruler.

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Stephen A. Cakouros • Jul 30, 2018 at 11:38

Turkey is becoming or remaining what it has always been because the prevailing religion was founded by the prophet Mohammed; who consummated his marriage to Aisha when she was just nine. A religion is like a stream. It rises no higher than its source. For Turkey to change it will have to change its religion. If America is sinking into the moral abyss it is because Christianity is giving way to secularism.

Now when it comes to Erdogan you really don't have to be an investigative reporter to see that his dealings with Syria demonstrate that he has been guilty of state sponsored terrorism. He also uses strong arm tactics in Turkey. What should the Turkish people do? For now they should protest passively by never showing up for what have to be rigged elections, and if not rigged, a proof that the Turkish people have not been sufficiently westernize. I think at some point Turkey will come back to its senses and right the foundering ship. We can only hope.

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Warren s Pugh • Jul 30, 2018 at 11:14

Received a letter an attorney threatening to take me to court if I did not 'cease and desist' in messages I have been sending to an imam and one of his cash suppliers. Read this message from Gatestone, which is actually one of hundreds of like narratives, and wish the Congress, press and many Americans would just read Youtube videos provided by Ann Corcoran that factualize why millions of folks in the U.S. are not interested in polygamy, female genital mutilation, marriages to pre-teens, and, of all things, seeing a chink in our armour the Muslims are seriously pursuing pedophilia via LGBT in the U.S..

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John Cox • Jul 30, 2018 at 10:10

Why is this backward country allowed to stay in NATO? Isn't there a code of conduct nation must adhere to be allowed to work with all other forward looking nations?

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Larry M. Goldstein • Jul 30, 2018 at 09:30

The overall Turkish birthrate is estimated at about 2.1 per woman, that is, essentially replacement level today. That statistic is true, but it is also a lie, because it masks the truth. In what is sometimes called "western Turkey," meaning the part that is dominated by ethnic Turks, the birth rate is about 1.5 children per woman, implying a contraction of about 30% in each generation. In eastern Turkey, read the land of the Kurds, the birthrate is about 4.0 children per woman. The 20% of Turkey's population that is Kurdish is already producing almost 40% of all children being born in the country. The ethnic Turks fear Kurdish domination by the 2030's, and rightly so. There will come a time in the not so distant future when either the entire country will become dominated by the Kurds, or the current country will split into Turkey in the west and Kurdistan in the east.

The Turks have defeated the Kurds on the battlefield. They are losing, however, in the bedroom, and that is where the war will be decided. Let us not be deceived by Erdogan's proclamations. Turkey is on the verge of demographic collapse, and we will see that happen soon. Larry M. Goldstein

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Francis Meyrick • Jul 30, 2018 at 08:22

The author risks a lot to write the truth. Persecution, likely. Imprisonment, possibly. And yet he paints. With feeling, and a gentle brush. Respect. And thank you.

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knack • Jul 30, 2018 at 07:23

Ηello 'Mr' Erdogan! You will gradually destroy Turkey!

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elee knack • Jul 30, 2018 at 12:24

He's more likely to destroy Europe with his huge Fifth Columns in European countries, intelligence flows via his subsidized imams there, and unlawful activities based in the Turkish expat communities. And Turkish and other Muslim women are denied their lawful freedoms inside the Muslim no-go zones. Maybe at least we can bring some real freedoms to Muslim expat women. But we will have to have the courage to disrupt other people's culture of Prophetically-sactioned pederasty (as well as imported taharrush and rape of kafir women and girls).

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jill merano • Jul 30, 2018 at 07:07

If Mustafa Kemal Atartuk would see what became of Turkey today, such tragedy. Sadly Turkey is no longer a secular country that used to protect its women. It gradually slips into oblivion, as Islamic rule tightens its noose.

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